Seniors recall first days
Ellen Magoc, now 82, had perhaps the worst first day of school ever. She was told to leave.
Magoc and other residents of Concordia at Cabot in Jefferson Township recently shared their school stories.
After attending St. Joseph School in New Kensington for eight years, Magoc felt prepared for her first day in public high school. Earlier that week, her mother took her to a hair salon to get a perm; Magoc couldn't have felt more confident.
But then she was called to the nurse's office. She had lice. Perhaps she got it from the hair salon, but because of the lice she had to take some time off of school.
Magoc says she gave her mother “every gray hair she had.” Though she wasn't a “bad child,” she admits that she was in trouble frequently. Trouble had a way of finding her.
She liked shuffling her feet along the sidewalk in the fall to kick up the leaves. Her mother begged her to “please, please lift your feet” and threatened to line the shoes with newspaper when they wore thin, but Magoc was just having fun.
“I got scolded a lot because I wore my shoes out really quickly,” Magoc said. “We went through a lot of newspaper.”
In those days, school buses were a rarity. And one- or two-room schoolhouses were a reality.
Betty Baird, 96, attended a double room schoolhouse in Leechburg. It was several miles down a dirt road, there and back. Plus, she'd go home daily for a hearty lunch of vegetable soup.
Mable Parker, 82, walked to elementary school in Natrona Heights, too. One day as Parker and her twin sister were headed into school, an old Model T Ford pulled up along the road. Since it was a cold day, the driver offered the girls a ride.
Though Mable considers herself the “brave” twin, she burst into tears on this occasion. The driver had a hatchet in the vehicle, and that scared her.
Students who would hike to school had to dress for the weather.
Mary Elder, 90, recalls wearing thick long stockings and countless layers of clothing. Elder was lucky enough to have a bus ride to school, but her father insisted she get to classes, even if the buses couldn't run for the day. Fortunately, Elder would catch a ride with her neighbor as he drove to work.
But sometimes winter clothing could be worn before the temperature started to drop. Barbara Kucur, 77, remembers how important her first day outfit was.
“You maybe got one new outfit,” Kucur said. “And if it was flannel or wool, you didn't care if it was 90 degrees the day you went back. You wore that because it was new.”
Kucur's best first day of school was perhaps when her grandparents allowed her to drive their new convertible. Kucur, who attended school in Vandergrift, thought she was “really hot” when she pulled into her high school parking lot.
Kucur's sister, Martha, was once offered a ride in a hearse. After Martha asked to be picked up from school, the girls' brother, a mechanic, agreed. He showed up at the school driving the hearse that he just finished repairing, but Martha wouldn't get in. She walked home, as her brother followed, honking the horn the whole way.
Ruth Frohn, 93, had her sister, Anna, as her third grade teacher. She refused to call Anna by her last name.
“We were always addressing the teachers by 'miss whatever,' but I said I'm not calling my sister that,” Frohn said. “And none of the other kids did either.”
They called her “Miss Anna.”
Frohn followed in her sister's footsteps. She became a teacher after attending Thiel College. She's retired, but offers this advice to students: Behave and take in all you can get.
